


Proverbs

by sofriel



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Native American Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:36:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofriel/pseuds/sofriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'A life of pain is the pain of life, and you can never escape it, only hope it hides, unknown, in a drawer like a poisonous spider and never comes out again—even though it probably will, in unexpected and horrific fashion, scaring you from being able to comfortably conduct even the most mundane, quotidian tasks.' That’s what Cecil’s grandmother had always said to him, usually followed by a barrage of muttered insults in Apache.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proverbs

**Author's Note:**

> Apache!Cecil. First paragraph from The Lights In Radon Canyon. My apologies to the Navajo.

A life of pain is the pain of life, and you can never escape it, only hope it hides, unknown, in a drawer like a poisonous spider and never comes out again—even though it probably will, in unexpected and horrific fashion, scaring you from being able to comfortably conduct even the most mundane, quotidian tasks.

That’s what Cecil’s grandmother had always said to him, usually followed by a barrage of muttered insults in Apache. She’d gone through enough in her life, dealt with arthritis for half her life, and had been relocated to Night Vale along with about dozen others from the Valle de la Noche band when she was ten years old. She didn’t like to tell stories from that time, when they were all convinced the government had sent them there in hopes they’d die off one by one, slowly and alone, until none were left, only to have it confirmed by City Council that was exactly the plan, except it was for everybody and not just Indians, or when the first of them was lost during the Great Street Cleaning of ’56. And she never quite forgave Cecil’s mother for running for City Council and winning.

It was those summers, the one’s he’d spent with her while his mother was away for the annual Planning Committee (the ones she returned from sometimes with an extra eye, always chain-smoking and speaking in tongues, as was standard for council members—it was hard on a family), that he remembered best. At night his grandma could get the signal of KTNN and she’d sit Cecil on the porch with some gelatinous ooze from the clock to play with while she listened and complained about those damn Navajos.

Cecil loved the sound of the radio, the voice of the bilingual announcer slow and smooth. He could tell you every piece of gossip on the Navajo rez during those months. On those days he couldn’t listen, he’d force everyone in earshot to listen to a recitation of local news, including his own a cappella renditions of the 49 songs, Johnny Cash, and Led Zeppelin. But soon enough his grandma had to grudgingly admit that he was developing quite a nice tone for a radio host. Even his mother gargled her approval.

It was his grandmother’s words he tried to remember when he started working as an intern at the radio station, running around town, risking life or death with the toothed coffee machine, slipping reports under the door to station management. A life of pain is the pain of life, he thought when he was attacked by a family of bats who’d been transfigured into flying scissors during a thunderstorm, positively destroying the long ponytail he’d cultivated most of his life. He shut numerous dark entities into drawers during his time as an intern, and he very much hoped that they would not come crawling back out.

He sat at the microphone, hoping. He had forgotten to lock the drawer. God how he hoped. Oh dear.


End file.
